Under the Guard & Specific MMA sparring (diary entry)

04.03.20   Wednesday night’s Junior Submission Grappling/Ground-Fighting revised the previous lesson’s guard pass and introduced stacking and going under the guard. The Senior MMA lesson went through both the MMA and Dutch Kickboxing drills I taught yesterday in addition to a ground fighting exercise before rounds of intense specific sparring.   We began the junior lesson we some revision on a sit-out exercise. I teach three sit-out exercises. However, this particular one is good for teaching dexterity that is helpful for guard passing and general top position movement. This version involves turning yourself completely round to a top position after performing the sit-out technique. It promotes good coordination for maintaining top position pressure as well as the initial sit-out technique.   Next we went back through using combat base to pass through a guard. Here we addressed the importance of maintaining pressure throughout the entire technique. We then covered stacking. This involves standing up in guard and keeping a strong posture with the hips forward to begin stacking against the opponent’s neck. The guard is then broken whilst holding this position to control potential counters and then an explosive double under-hook is used to grip over the opponent’s hips to apply more pressure and to eventually pass into side control. The junior lesson finished with two 5 minute rounds of sparring where my client both worked on passing the guard and defending from the guard.   The senior lesson began with the Dutch Kickboxing drills I taught to yesterday’s client in my teacher training. We then moved onto the MMA drill taught to my client who is on his first MMA course. We then drilled defending from half-guard. Here my client adopted a knee-shield and semi-lockdown position working to either get to the side for a dog-fight sweep or go to the leg for an electric chair/full lockdown position.   We then sparred for 6 x 2 minute rounds in specific areas using MMA gloves – boxing, shoot-boxing, Muay Thai, shoot-Muay Thai, guard-passing and defending from guard.